making a favorable entry into politics; and as for fortune, his aunt on
the mother's side, a Miss Tremont, of Cornwall, an old maid without nearer
relatives than her nephew, was in a fair way to bequeath him seventy
thousand pounds. And furthermore (this was an aspect of the case which
Colonel Battledown probably kept to himself), it was not beyond the bounds
of possibility that Archibald might finally inherit Malmaison in spite of
the accident of his birth. Edward Malmaison had always been a delicate
child, and years were not making him stronger. He was very studious, and
disinclined to those active exercises in which his brother was already
beginning to excel: his eyes were weak and his cheeks pale; and in short,
unless his constitution should presently undergo a favorable change, the
chances were fairly against his surviving Archibald, to say the least of
it. "Archie thrashed him at fisticuffs," said the old man of war to
himself, "and why shouldn't he get the better of him in other ways as
well? Of course we wish no harm to happen to poor Edward, who is a good
little snipe enough; but one must conduct one's campaign to an eye to what
may happen, as well as to what is."

So this matrimonial arrangement, without being definitely resolved upon
(except possibly in the hearts of the two young persons principally
concerned), was allowed to remain in a state of favorable suspense. Kate
and Archibald saw one another as much as was good for them--although, by
way of keeping up the chivalric conditions, they used to pretend that all
manner of portentous obstacles intervened between them and the
consummation of their desires; and exhausted their ingenuity in the
devising of secret meetings, of elopements across the garden wall, and of
heart-rending separations, when imaginary heartless parents tore them
ruthlessly from one another's arms. In a letter written by Sir Clarence to
Dr. Rollinson, under date December 27th, 1811, the jolly Baronet says:
"Our Xmas festivities were for a time interupted by another Romantic